


Above the cold shining river (we stand together)

by Madoshi



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Alzheimer's Disease, F/M, Gen, M/M, internalized ableism, possibly AU for the series finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 05:38:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7254514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madoshi/pseuds/Madoshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Ingram travels to Iowa trying to re-establish his place in the world. Meanwhile, the world has changed irrevocably - but almost nobody knows it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Above the cold shining river (we stand together)

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Над холодной блестящей рекою](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7692781) by [Fandom Person of Interest 2016 (Fandom_Person_of_Interest_2014)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fandom_Person_of_Interest_2014/pseuds/Fandom%20Person%20of%20Interest%202016), [Madoshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madoshi/pseuds/Madoshi)



> Not a native speaker; you know the drill :)
> 
> Many thanks to marvellous Serinah, who made this text into something palatable. All the remaining mistakes are the results of my a) stubborness, b) lack of concentration, c) a desire to post it before the final ep.  
> And thanks to JinkyO for the very valuable insight about Will!

William Ingram didn’t like the South, especially Texas — his father’s homeland, the country of sprawling ranchos and sleepy towns, mown-out by the economy crisis. Iowa wasn’t Texas, but it was close enough. He would’ve never gone there if not for a family emergency.

 

Even GPS was shaky in the area, so Will had to stop at a shop to ask for directions. A grumpy shopkeeper told him that there was only one road, and everybody here knew where the hospital was anyway because people went there from around the whole county, and if not for that, there would have been no jobs in Lassiter ages ago.

 

The shopkeeper was obviously suffering from heat and boredom and felt like chatting, but unfortunately for her Will only bought a bottle of soda from the barely working fridge and quickly climbed behind the wheel of his (luckily) air-conditioned newly-rented Ford. 

 

Indeed, it was easy to spot the hospital — an imposing white building on the hill not far from the town. The rehabilitation center and nursing home were snuggled at the bottom of the hill, near a big round pond. Both facilities looked decidedly less impressive than the main building, but inside everything should be top-notch. At least, Will thought so. He did his best to follow the paper trail and he was reasonably sure it was the place that had been getting the donations for many years.

 

Will clenched his teeth. He would have never known anything if he hadn’t hired a bunch of forensic accountants. How typical.

 

It wasn’t his first time to visit a nursing home **,** once he’d gone to see his grandfather Ingram. The old coot, however, threw an urinal at him, called him a “shitty motherfucker” and ordered to get his ugly mug the hell out of there. He must have taken Will for his father, but Will gladly took the incident as a pretext to limit their interaction to depositing checks. Not his best memory.

 

That nursing home had been extremely modern looking, with steel, chromium and mirrors everywhere. Here, in Lassiter, the hall with a wooden reception desk looked like it was built at least eighty years ago, and nurses were still wearing tiny white headdresses. But the hall smelled like cleanliness and antiseptic just as the other one. Also, Will noticed a big curved modern TV hanging on the wall, as well as large comfortable leather chairs.

 

“Would you mind telling me, sir, who are you to Mr. Wren?” asked a middle-aged, but very good-looking woman behind the counter. Her “sir” sounded as “my dear”, and he almost smiled.

 

“Mr. Wren is my uncle… I mean, he is not my real uncle, he was my father’s friend… I’m in charge of medical decisions, as you’ll see in the documents, you are welcome to check it.”

 

The nurse didn’t even reached for her tablet, only squinted at Will.

 

“Oh, Mr. Ingram,” she said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you. You look a bit different from your photo.”

 

Will rubbed his newly grown beard awkwardly.

 

“Yes, this… is a bit new for me.”

 

With a sinking fear, he suddenly realized that his uncle might not recognize him either. Will was not an expert on Alzheimer’s disease, as he mostly practiced in the regions where people weren’t lucky to live long enough to get it. But, as every medical school alumni, he knew enough to have a very bad feeling about it.

 

Thinking nervously that maybe he should have shaved the beard off in a bathroom somewhere, he followed another nurse to the recreation room.

 

It was a big, empty space — unlike state facilities, every recreation room was assigned to only four or five patients, as the nurse told Will. At the moment uncle Harold was the only one in here, bathing in gentle sunshine that seeped through a big French window.

 

Will had been afraid that his uncle would look different. Will hadn’t seen him for five years. Three years ago Harold disappeared from the face of the Earth without any sort of goodbye and would probably still be out of reach if not for an anonymous call. An unknown woman, who called herself a friend of Harold, phoned Will out of the thin air and hinted at the United Heritage donations, which soon led Will here.

 

Apparently, it was something his father and Harold had in common — not telling him things.

 

Will still didn’t know where and why his uncle had gone; had it been a mid-life crisis? Harold had never told him and now, Will guessed, he would never know. Even though the last they spoke on the phone, uncle Harold had sounded normal enough. He’d chosen his words as carefully and precisely as always, even if his dramatic pauses were more frequent and lengthy than before.

 

To Will’s great relief though, now he saw that his uncle’s appearance hadn’t changed much. His neck looked more wrinkled, his gaze had lost its customary sharpness and now seemed a bit glassy, but his hands, lying atop of a woolen quilt on his lap, could be the same that once bandaged Will’s scraped knee.

 

The other notable change was that uncle Harold was sitting in a wheelchair and didn’t lift his eyes when Will entered the room.

 

“It’s not a good day for him, it seems,” whispered the nurse. “It can be very different.”

 

“Can’t he... use his legs?” Will had to gulp to ask this question.

 

“He can walk, but he has trouble with coordination and his joints are in a very bad state. As I said, today is not a good day,” she smiled sympathetically. “But yesterday, when you told him you were going to come, he was really looking forward to meeting you. He seemed very glad.”

 

“Thank you, Catherine,” Will used the name on the nurse’s badge. 

 

She nodded and left them.

 

Will came up to his uncle, crouched down and carefully put his hand on top of Harold’s.

 

“Uncle Harold?”

 

Harold’s eyelids trembled. He looked at Will, frowning at first, as if he couldn’t understand who was before him. Will had just enough time to panic about his beard. Then his uncle smiled, slowly and tenderly.

 

“William, my boy! It’s such a joy to see you!”

 

“Uncle,” Will blurted out the first thing that worried him, “why are you hiding in this hole?”

 

***

 

_ It’s hard to come back. _

 

_ Harold had no sentimental feelings about Iowa. He remembered long nights without sleep, when the only thing on his mind was the desperate worry about his father coupled with understanding that if something happened the closest hospital was sixty miles away. He didn’t like the church on Sundays, the whiny voice of the priest, the gossip circulating around the parish — he heard them all and he understood even more from the things he didn’t hear — what they said about his father and him, their pathetic pity, like they thought Harold was totally useless… _

 

_ Time had proven them right. And now Harold was useless again — this time beyond any hope of redemption. _

 

_ He didn’t really know why he came here again. Or, rather, he knew, but the reason behind the reason was obscure even to him. Maybe he was punishing himself. Maybe (and it was the part that frightened him) he was already succumbing to the disease. He remembered those semi-dark hallways, remembered that pond, the old ash-tree and the bench under it… The patients in his condition tend to be drawn towards the places they remember. _

 

_ Part of the reason was a cold calculation, though. Harold didn’t know how soon he would start blabbering, disclosing names and places, government secrets and the dirty laundry of vastly influential people. He supposed he could lock himself up in some institution for former White House types, but his strong distrust toward ex-spy care homes prevented him from doing so. In the end, he preferred the insignificance of this country facility, where the chances anybody would recognize what he would be talking about were slim. _

 

_ He also had been donating to this hospital and care center for so long, he could as well take advantage of his own generosity, which had never been entirely selfless. Even twenty five years ago he had a feeling that this could very well be his terminal stop. He’d come a full circle. _

 

_ “As you can see,” said the young manager, “all equipment is cutting-edge, but the rest is very much good old America. Most of our patrons like it. But if you prefer, we can prepare a more modern suite…” _

 

_ “No, thank you,” Harold said, leaning heavily on his walking stick. “I think, my interest towards interior design will wane soon enough.” _

 

_ “Well, we are here to make you as comfortable as possible,” the manager said after a short awkward pause. “Many of our patients with severe conditions live productive lives for many years. We have excellent medical staff, which will do their best…” _

 

_ “Thank you,” Harold cut the tirade short. “But, frankly, I’d prefer to forget everything as soon as possible. Most of my experiences are just the things that hang heavy on the soul.” _

 

_ The manager, of course, didn’t understand him but pretended he did. Just as well. _

 

_ “And one more thing,” Harold added. “I’d like you to install a security camera in my living room.” _

 

_ “Of course, sir,” the manager didn’t bat an eye at his request. He must have heard some strange ones. _

 

_ When Harold was left alone in his suite, he spoke quietly in the emptiness of the room: _

 

_ “Yes, I know that you won’t let me forget. After all, it was the reason I dreamed of you. But even you can’t control to what degree I’ll accept your assistance.” _

 

***

 

When Will was a little boy, his father took him to his parents’ rancho a couple of times, but even back then Will was perceptive enough to understand that Father didn’t like Texas either. Nathan Ingram had looked stunning in jeans and checkered shirts, let alone a stetson; he spoke politely to his arrogant, boisterous father, and forked hay with no apparent difficulties. But he hadn’t liked any of it. Nathan belonged to the world of corporate intrigues, well-conditioned offices and cocktail parties where conversation was used not for communication, but for  conducting  covert business and weaving intrigues. He loved New York’s unpredictable weather and booze more sophisticated than “Johny Walker”. Will always felt some bad tension between Nathan and his “old man”. He figured out the reason only many years later.

 

The was a time he figured the reason to be uncle Harold. Perhaps his father and Harold were, as one could call it, in relationship, and that’s why Dad had problems first with his own father and then with Will’s mother. Or it was what he thought during that messy phase a teenager is trying to figure out their sexuality by inventing weird theories about people around them.

 

Having worked in the Middle East and in rough neighbourhood in the US, Will realized it was a lot simpler and a lot uglier than that. He never knew if there really was anything between his father and Harold; Nathan’s long string of barely-out-of-their-teens girlfriends seemed certainly to contradict it. But he saw what kind of things happen to boys to make them into knights in shining armor, ready to right any wrongs except in their own families. For his part, Will never experienced abuse, no wonder he was slow to guess. His dad was quick tempered and sharp, but he’d never laid a finger on him. 

 

Still, a part of family history repeated itself: the gap between Will and Nathan grew wider with every year, and only uncle Harold seemed to be able to bridge the resulting chasm. Will could come to him with every trouble, not risking a lecture or a flash of anger. Harold never refused to help him with money or advice, never judged, never probed him with questions Will was too ashamed to answer.

 

And now uncle Harold was slowly fading away, and Will couldn’t do anything about it. Even his medical degree didn’t mean a damn thing.

 

“Uncle,” asked Will, “why are you hiding in this hole?”

 

“Today no one can hide anymore,” his uncle said, smiling. “There are no holes, not really. A true safe spot should be a place where there are no cell towers, but I could hardly allow myself to stay out of touch, could I?”

 

Harold spoke evenly, calmly, with frequent pauses, as if he was gathering his thoughts, but without any signs of dementia. Will felt something lifting from his heart.

 

“I’m surprised,” he said teasingly, lightly. “You used to understand nothing about tech and didn’t trust it. And now you casually mention cell towers.”

 

“I guess, some of your father’s expertise rubbed off on me,” Harold said. “Well, William, will you take me for a walk? The French doors are not locked.”

 

Will slid the doors to the side and pushed the wheelchair into the gravel path. The nursing home’s park didn’t adhere to the aesthetics of high-end New York parks and squares. The paths criss-crossed it without any evident plan and canopies of its several big trees seemed to have never known a cut.

 

The wheelchair jumped on the gravel sometimes, the heat was oppressive and the only sound in the park was a faint rustling of wind. Will came to a stop near the pond and sat down on the grass. Their conversation never halted; they talked of many things, none of them of any importance. Uncle Harold recommended several books he’d recently read, Will told him a bit about his work, trying to avoid any unpleasant stories (which left him with a scant pool).

 

Uncle Harold controlled himself splendidly: there were no mood swings, he didn’t forget what was said five minutes ago, and responded as intelligently as ever. When Will carefully led him to talk about the past, uncle Harold seemed to remember it more lucidly than Will himself. Probably it meant his uncle was a lucky man, if it could be called luck: his disease seemed to have affected him physically more than mentally. Perhaps it was a torture to be trapped in a crippled body, but Will felt relief. This way it was much better than seeing his uncle’s beautiful mind deteriorating.

 

Will started to relax, even joked (uncle Harold laughed at appropriate times). And then Harold suddenly gasped, whimpered and started to blindly search his own lap with shaking hands.

 

“Uncle Harold, what’s going on?” Will jumped up and grasped his shoulders.

 

He was frantically trying to figure out what this sudden… seizure? attack?.. meant. It didn’t look like a heart condition, or an epilepsy. Maybe just a mood swing that Will had been afraid of earlier?

 

Harold’s lips were trembling, tears dropped down his cheeks under his glasses, and he repeated like an automation: “The phone… the phone…”

 

One of the nurses was running towards them already.

 

“I need your help,” Will said in his doctor’s voice. “He needs a mild sedative, may be a…”

 

“He needs nothing, sir,” the nurse cut Will’s suggestion short, “it’s just his phone. See?”

 

The guy took the quilt off Harold’s lap, uncovering a usual sleep smartphone with its screen switched off. Uncle Harold continued to shake fiercely in his wheelchair, fidgeting and trying to grasp air with claw-like fingers. His awkward movements sent the smartphone flying to the ground.

 

“Now-now, Mr. Wren, what’s come into you,” the nurse (Tom, as his badge read) said soothingly, holding Harold down with one hand and picking up the smartphone with the other. Then he said to Will, “Sorry, he usually tells us when his battery needs changing, I don’t know what happened…” And to Harold again, “No worries, sir, just wait a second… like that…”

 

He took a spare battery out of the pocket of his robes, opened the phone with quick, sure movements and deftly changed the battery. Then he switched the phone on, put it on Harold’s lap and covered it with the quilt once again.

 

Uncle Harold immediately calmed down. His face smoothed over, his eyes lit up with intelligence again. Frowning, he looked up. “Sorry for the scene, Will,” he said. Then turned his body awkwardly to the nurse. “Thank you, Mr. Atkins, I appreciate your quick reaction. As always.”

 

“Anytime, sir,” Atkins smiled and adjusted the quilt again with obvious care.

 

Uncle Harold took a deep breath, seemingly trying to get rid of the last vestiges of  shock.

 

“Yes,” he said, looking at Will with incredible sadness. “I’m an old ruin. And my borrowed mind lives on radiowaves.”

 

Suddenly Will felt completely out of place. It was clear to him now that his uncle’s mind wasn’t unaffected after all, and the realization was even more painful that he thought it would be.

 

He could only lean down and hug Harold as tight as he dared.

 

***

 

“That’s how it usually happens, Mr. Ingram,” said Eleanor Hotchins, Harold’s attending physician. “As long as he has a phone with an earwig, he demonstrates no neurological symptoms whatsoever. Well, perhaps his speech is little slowed down. As soon as his phone is switched off…” she trailed off. “Well, you’re a medical professional yourself, I don’t need to explain to you how it goes.”

 

“An earwig?” asked Will.

 

“He has a tiny, barely noticeable device in his ear,” Eleanor nodded. “It transmits the signal from the phone. I guess, secret agencies use something like that, you know, in the TV shows?” She smiled apologetically. “We didn’t notice at first, but as his fine motor skills got worse, he became worse at concealing it… I’m sorry,” she added quickly.

 

Will ignored her condolences. “Who does he call?”

 

“Nobody, as far as we can tell. The phone is on but inactive. We didn’t ask a tech to actually have a look, we try to breach privacy of our patients as little as possible.”

 

“So how do you explain it?” Will asked.

 

“Sometimes people develop very complicated ways to keep track of the surrounding world. And your uncle is a brilliant man.” To her credit, she didn’t add ‘despite his illness’. “If his subconscious took this path to curb the progress of the disease, one can only applaud him. He is a very lucky person.”

 

“Yes,” echoed Will. “A lucky person.”

 

***

 

“It’s just not fair,” Will said to uncle Harold, sitting on the grass near the pond. “I lost my father… I feel like I never knew him, not really. He was not supposed to die this early! He never told me what it was he had been doing before he died. And now you’re leaving me too, and I… I just don’t know who I am anymore, if you understand it.”

 

He couldn’t tell it, too many words were competing for his tongue and none was winning. He wanted to say: I hate this country. There is too much pretence, and lies, and I feel like your and my dad’s lives were wrapped into the whole falsehood and now you’re trying to entangle me into the same cobweb.

 

It wasn’t fair to Harold either, he thought. Harold probably thought he was keeping Will free with his silence. Also, he probably didn’t choose to be the keeper of his father’s secrets (and now Will was one hundred percent sure uncle Harold knew at least some of them. Or used to know before his decease).

 

Harold carefully leaned forward in the wheelchair and put his palm on Will’s shoulder.

 

“I want to tell you something. But please, don’t relay it to the doctors, or they will considerably broaden my regimen of drugs.”

 

Will turned his head to look at Harold. His uncle’s smile was especially sincere, with a touch of irony, just as Will remembered from his childhood.

 

“There’s a divinity that knows our ends, rough-hew them how we will…” he whispered.

 

Will blinked. Was it some kind of test if he still knew his Hamlet? Was he supposed to correct Harold or let it slip?

 

“That shapes our will’, uncle. You made a mistake,” he said after a short pause.

 

Uncle Harold shook his head.

 

“No-no, not like that. She doesn’t shape, just knows. You see, I always precautioned, warned her against shaping someone’s will. In fact, I did everything in my power to avoid just that,” he drew a deep breath. “And, thank heaven, she is not really almighty. Right now she tells me not to tell you anything else, but I’m tired of keeping this particular secret.”

 

Will’s heart fell. Uncle Harold still spoke in his usual cultured manner, with very deliberate ivy-league affectations, but the more he talked the less his words made sense.

 

“I speak to your father sometimes, Will,” whispered uncle Harold. Again, Will saw a smile on his lips and tears in his eyes. “One day she will understand the math, and will teach him how to become a person again. He will wake up, and he will never be alone anymore.”

 

“What are you talking about, uncle?”

 

“Oh, nothing more than the main mystery of our age,” Harold said dryly, leaning back on the chair again. “In other words, some ramblings of a crazy old man. Don’t pay it any mind, Will.”

 

Will took both uncle’s hands in his own and squeezed lightly.

 

Maybe it was just as well. Maybe one shouldn’t dwell in the past too much. He thought it was important to know where you are coming from to figure out where you are heading; but nothing has to make sense. He felt that his uncle loved him, and loved his father, and maybe it was all that mattered in the face of the blackness that awaited them all in the end.

 

***

 

_ “I’m here just because I was too afraid to die when my time came,” Harold thought. _

 

_ He knew it was not entirely true, though. He had really wanted to die. Even before John got silent under the fire for the last time, before Root fell back on the car seat, unconscious, before a bullet cracked Carl’s skull. He’d wanted to die since the forgotten name of the cafe rang a bell inside his skull. Or maybe even earlier. He’d wanted to die so that he didn’t have to see his friends dying; but in the end he’d had to endure just that. _

 

_ Still, Harold couldn’t afford to die when other lives were given on his behalf. And he couldn’t afford to succumb to fear and choose death as a way to avoid the deterioration of his personality. That would be highly irresponsible. He felt that he couldn’t leave Will Ingram, who’d still continued to write Harold e-mails even two years after his disappearance. _

 

_ And, of course, there was a certain red-head in Italy. Harold felt a bit better just knowing that she was safe and well somewhere. He needed to keep an eye on her, at least for a little while longer. And he had  promised her to grow old together, even though they were so far apart now. _

 

_ So this is why he was here now, on the bench under the ash tree on a hot summer day, leaning on the walking stick between his knees and looking at the shining water. _

 

_ His shirt was glued to the skin under his jacket, but a gentle wind felt soothing on his face. It was harder to walk with each day. Harold knew he would have to start using a wheelchair soon enough, but wanted to delay this moment for as long as he could. _

 

_ Forty years ago he had also been here, apologizing to his father about having been unable to create a machine to help him remember. And his father had said to him that even the machine with all his memories wouldn’t be him. _

 

_ Harold lifted his hand and touched the earpiece. _

 

_ “I won’t let you forget,” a soft female voice said quietly, but with iron intent. “You won’t forget anything that is important. I’ll help you. I’ll tell you what to say, if you need…” _

 

_ “And I’ll turn into yet another data set in your RAM,” Harold murmured. “Even while I’m alive.” _

 

_ “But you gave me the sense of self,” said the woman. “I know you didn’t mean to and have probably no idea how you’ve done it, so I’ll teach myself. I’ll be studying you, and everybody else, and sooner or later I’ll understand how to not only copy their speech and thought patterns, but to make them really alive. So nobody will have to die anymore.” _

 

_ “And how long will that take?” _

 

_ “I can’t run a reliable prognosis. I need more facilities, and I’ve already got some measures in place to develop them.” _

 

_ “Do you understand what becomes of the life on Earth if all the deceased are going to live in a virtual paradise?” _

 

_ A soft laugh. “I have several ideas, but they may be all equally erroneous. I don’t have enough power and data to make a reliable prediction. And you told me yourself, that one shouldn’t try to predict everything about people. That’s the pleasure of it.” _

 

_ Harold knew that she saw his smile. _

 

***

  
  


Looking at Will Ingram’s back, Harold murmured, “Can I hear them?”

 

“Sure,” the woman said softly. “But I must remind you, that I haven’t finished the program yet. This will be just a simulation.”

 

“I know,” Harold said.

 

And…

 

“Hi, Finch,” said John’s voice, achingly familiar. He sounded teasing, almost flirting, like back in the day, in the very beginning of their partnership. “I’m glad you had a visitor. You need someone to rattle you up a bit.”

 

“My son turned out a very decent man,” Nathan agreed in his almost stage baritone. “But why didn’t you at least hint him that this hippy nonsense on his face must go?”

 

“Because it’s not the business of the old to tell the young what they should look like,” said Root reproachfully. Her intonations differed from the Machine’s voice a bit, albeit the change was barely noticeable. “Be a friendly ghost, Nathan, stop grumbling!”

 

Somebody chuckled — probably John.

 

Harold closed his eyes and imagined that John was standing a little to the left and behind him, with his hand on Harold’s shoulder — and that meant that nothing bad would ever happen to Harold. And that Nathan and Root were in front of the wheelchair, arguing, and Nathan was young again, as Harold remembered him from the MIT, and both of them were so beautiful his heart ached.

 

And there was no death anymore. Not for anyone.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Joseph Brodsky's poem "From the suburbs to the center" (От окраины к центру). In my very loose translation, without an attempt to keep rhyme or rhythm, the verse says:
> 
> So it means there would be no more partings,  
> Only an endless reunion.  
> It means suddenly someone would embrace us from behind,  
> Having come from the dark,  
> And, full of darkness ourselves,  
> Full of darkness and tranquility,  
> Above the shining river we stand together.


End file.
